Professor Butter Beard and “Dark Shadows”
“My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning, a journey that I hope will open the doors of life to me and link my past with my future. A journey that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea, high atop Widow's Hill, a house called Collinwood. A world I've never known, with people I've never met. People who tonight are still only shadows in my mind, but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrows.” - Victoria Winters
Every afternoon at 4pm the coastal waves would start to crash, the ethereal music would begin to swell, and Victoria Winters would invite me to accompany her on a journey into the dark depths of Collinwood. For thirty frightening minutes I was truly transported and lived within the world of vampires, witches and werewolves as imagined by Dan Curtis. His stories implanted dark shadows into my young soul that still bewitch and tantalize me to this day.
“Dark Shadows” is an American gothic soap opera that aired weekdays on the ABC television network, broadcasting 1,225 episodes from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. Dan Curtis, a former salesman and producer of “CBS Golf Classics” was ready in 1965 to challenge the American public with a new vision of daytime television programming inspired by a bewitching personal dream.
He writes: “The other evening, I awoke suddenly in the middle of a strange dream. I saw a girl with long dark hair. She was about 19 and she was reading a letter aboard a train and staring wistfully out the window. Then the train stopped in this dark, isolated town. The girl got off the train and started walking. Finally, she came to a huge, forbidding house. At the door, she lifted a massive brass knocker and gently tapped it three times. I heard a dog howl and then, just as the door opened, I woke up.” Victoria Winters began her dance with the dark shadows of Collinwood.
After the original storyline of discovering Ms. Winter’s parentage and karmic connection to the Collins family reached its climax (all within six months), Curtis was ready to push his viewers even further and “go all the way with the supernatural stuff.” The vampire was introduced in the spring of 1967. The former small-time crook and now Collinswood estate caretaker Willie Loomis learned from young David Collins that the Collins family ancestors were buried with their personal wealth and he decided to help himself to the treasure by breaking into the family mausoleum. In an effort to abscond with the family jewels, he inadvertently discovered a secret room in the rear of the crypt. Inside was a single coffin wrapped in large, heavy chains. Willie tore apart the rusty chains and slowly opened the coffin lid. Rather than finding a cache of jewelry, however, Willie unwittingly freed Barnabas Collins who had been turned into a vampire 170 years before and was later chained within his coffin on the request of his father in an effort to save the family from a bloodless extinction.
The bloodless hand that flew up out of that coffin and clutched Willie Loomis in a death grip belonged to Jonathan Frid, an accomplished Shakespearian actor with an MFA in drama from Yale. Over the next four years, Frid embodied the vampire of Dan Curtis’ dreams. Barnabas Collins attempted to seduce young women convinced they were the reincarnations of his innocent 18th century finance Josette du Pres. He battled with the voodoo witch Angelique who, when scorned as a lover, cast the initial curse of a vampiric eternal life. He formed a unique and deliciously problematic relationship with the mysterious Quentin – a man with seductive eyes and a hairy history.
I watched every afternoon as Barnabas and his Collins family clashed with ghosts, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, witches, warlocks, time travel, and even parallel universes. I forgave Joan Bennett for stumbling into stage walls while balancing her glasses of brandy and pretended not to see the mysterious hands that would slowly reach through windows or doors to hand the actors their missing props. I would explore my grandparent’s homes every weekend convinced I would open a creaking door and be immediately transported into an alternate universe where Barnabas would seduce me with Josette’s music box and then lure me into a reborn life as his eternal vampiric bride. And yes, I still melt when my neck is nibbled.
Just last evening, as I settled deep in the sofa with my hound Nellie, I turned on the television with hopes of being delightfully submerged into a delicious evening of classic horror. I flipped to Turner Classic Movies and to my surprise, the host was just introducing “The House of Dark Shadows.” As Barnabas claimed his first victim, Miss Daphne Budd, my mind magically morphed the action into a tempting dessert built around a devils curd of blood-red cranberries and pomegranates held captive in a tart shell coffin and buried beneath a cloud of foggy meringue crowned with drops of warm blood in the form of glistening pomegranate seeds.
Nellie wasn’t impressed and fell deeply asleep, snoring through Caroline Collins’ screams. But I watched to the end with my twelve-year-old eyes, still eternally enamored with the vampire, and the witch, and the werewolf. Happy Halloween. And dear Barnabas, I will always leave the window open.
Devils Curd Meringue Tart
One nine-inch tart
Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp nut flour (I use almond)
½ tsp fine sea salt
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold, cut into ½” cubes
1 large egg
Curd:
1 bag fresh cranberries
2 Tbsp candied ginger, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup pomegranate juice
1 cup granulated sugar
½ tsp fine sea salt
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
2 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks
Meringue:
5 egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ tsp cream of tarter
1) For the crust: In a food processor, pulse together the two flours, salt and sugar. Add the cubed butter and pulse to the consistency of coarse cornmeal. Add the egg and pulse until the dough comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill one hour. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the tart pan in the middle. Roll the dough to 1/8” thickness and then place the rolled dough into the tart pan letting the excess drape over the edge of the pan. Blind bake the shell for twenty minutes. Let cool to room temperature on the baking sheet and trim the edges clean.
2) For the curd: In a medium saucepan, stir together the cranberries, chopped crystalized ginger, pomegranate juice, sugar and salt. Simmer until the berries pop and release all their juice. Strain the liquid and return it to the pan. Whisk in the butter until it has melted and is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs and additional yolks. Whisk in a bit of the warm cranberry mixture (to temper the eggs) and then add to the cranberry mixture. Over medium heat, cook until the mixture thickens, stirring all the time. Remove from the heat and let the curd cool to room temperature.
3) Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
4) For the meringue: Place the remaining egg whites in a small bowl and add the granulated sugar. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and gently whisk until the sugar is melted and the mixture reaches 150 degrees F. (I use a digital thermometer.) Pour the egg white/sugar mixture into the bowl of a standing mixer, add the cream of tarter and whisk on high speed until the mixture transforms into a glossy meringue. This could take between three to five minutes.
5) Fill the cooled shell with the curd and spread to make it even. Top with the meringue, spreading to the edges of the shell and make decorative peaks with a spoon. Bake the tart for 10 to 15 minutes until the meringue is just starting to color.
6) Let the tart cool completely before serving.
